


Can We Just Speak Plain?

by AilurusFulgens



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Minor Angst, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-21
Updated: 2015-04-21
Packaged: 2018-03-25 04:25:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3796633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AilurusFulgens/pseuds/AilurusFulgens
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Let's skip the charades<br/>You're seeing right through me anyway<br/>Can we just speak plain?<br/>We're playing for the same team<br/>But I'm the one that's acting like I'm so strong<br/>You're the one that's acting like nothing's wrong</p>
            </blockquote>





	Can We Just Speak Plain?

**Author's Note:**

> This is a (very very very) late Christmas gift for warlockintraining / Nel ! ♥

 

 

Bucky was startled by Talia jumping next to him on the unmade bed. He hadn't heard her come into the room, his mind caught up in the same whirlwind of thoughts it had been in for the last five days, after Steve left this exact same room slamming the door behind him.

 

***

 

Ever since he recovered from all of Hydra's wrongdoing and had been allowed back to civilian life, he and Steve had started to cautiously try and rebuild what they had before. It hadn't been easy, but they'd been good at it, learning everything about each other all over again, discovering the ways in which they changed, and the ones in which they didn't.

They’d moved in together, in a quiet neighborhood and had adopted Talia almost by accident. Steve had noticed this half-starved red cat, and had gone out of his way for a week, trying to get her to trust him enough to accept a bowl of cat food he'd bought for her.

One day they'd found the empty bowl on their window sill, along with the cat silently staring them down, head cocked in a _“come on what are you waiting for, feed me already”_ fashion, her tail lazily moving up and down, until they’d gotten the hint and replenished the bowl.

Bucky had laughed, saying that the likeliness with Natasha’s _modus operandi_ was remarkable and had decided to name her Natalia, after Natasha's birth name.

He could recall how antsy Steve had been when they'd had Nat over for the first time since Talia had officialy "moved in" with them, and how he'd cautiously gauged her reaction as she heard Bucky call the cat in a futile attempt to coax her out of her blanket nest in order to introduce her to Nat.

First confused, she'd then let out a startled laugh, and after she’d left, they'd found Talia sprawled out on the couch, purring as loudly as a lawnmower, with a blood-red lipstick drawn hourglass between her ears. It had since long faded, but reappeared once in a while after a certain spy came by for dinner.

But no matter how great things seemed to be, there were still a lot of hard times. Bucky had nightmares almost every night, some of which Steve was unable to break him out of.  
Steve was not the tiny man he used to be, twice as big and thrice as fierce, but Bucky's instincts to protect him were part of the ways that hadn't changed, which often lead to fights and harsh words that neither of them meant.

The one they had two day ago was no exception. Bucky had been having a particularly nasty nightmare involving Pierce and Steve, and had woken up sweaty and screaming, Steve hovering over him, eyes full of concern.

In the morning, he'd refused to share his dream, not wanting to burden his lover with useless worries, which lead to an argument they'd already had a thousand times.  
He could recall exactly how it ended, Steve trying once again to coax the dream out of him.

“You gotta talk about it Buck,” he’d said, frustration seeping into his voice after fifteen minutes of useless questioning, “you can’t pretend it’s nothing, it happened three times in as many days. You screamed yourself awake, for God’s sake, don’t you dare tell me you’re alright.”

Faced with stubborn silence, he had crossed his arms and muttered, “God, you’re unbelievable!” He’d unfolded his arms and brought a hand up to his forehead. “How do you expect us to make this relationship work if you clam up like a damn oyster every time I ask you something?” He’d asked, only to be answered by more silence. “Tell me Bucky, because I, for one, have no idea!” He had snapped, throwing his hands up in exasperation.

"Well I'm sorry Steve, but I'm messed up, alright? I'm fucked up and there's nothing you can do to make it better, not now, not ever. You can't be the hero this time, deal with it!" He’d yelled, still on edge from the nightmare. He’d seen Steve ball up his fists, the muscles in his jaw tight, and had felt a pang of guilt for pushing Steve like this.

"You know what your damn problem is?" Steve had started to say angrily, but he hadn’t had a chance to finish.

"No, I don’t, but I think I figured what yours is," he’d heard himself spit back. He’d locked his eyes with Steve’s. "It's me. It’s not as easy as you thought it would be once you got me back, is it?” Bucky had challenged. “You fought tooth and nail to find me, but little did you know that poor Bucky was going to be broken. And no matter how hard you try I’m never gonna be as shiny and polished as you want me, right? Not enough to satisfy you anyway. I’m not the person that you used to love anymore,” his voice had broken on the last words.

He could feel his nails digging in his palm where his right fist had been closed so tightly his knuckles had turned white. He’d closed his eyes briefly, half to try and regain control of his emotions and body, half because he hadn’t been able to stomach how Steve had looked as if he had just been slapped. But the bitterness and hurt had quickly taken over the guilt.

“I'm not a goddamn charity Steve,” he’d spat. “You don't have to make me your good deed of the year, alright? If I’m too much of a burden, then be my fucking guest and leave."

At that, he’d turned to look through the window, look everywhere but at Steve, missing the way his face went white at his words, sadness and hurt written all over it.

If Bucky had flinched when the door had slammed close, he had however not been surprised.

 

***

 

Bucky was sitting downstairs at the kitchen table, warming his palms on his mug of coffee, watching as Talia’s tail kept curling and uncurling around his right ankle, a show of gratitude for the food probably, when he heard someone coming up the front steps and ringing the doorbell. He sighed, and reluctantly stood up to open the door.

The stunned look on the delivery girl’s face, which was almost totally hidden behind a truly humongous bouquet, reminded Bucky that he hadn’t bothered putting on any kind of shirt, or pants for that matter, before going to feed Talia, and was only wearing very tight briefs that left nothing to the imagination. He cursed inwardly.

“I, hum, I have a delivery for…” the girl’s voice trailed off, her eyes raking up and down Bucky’s body, coming to a stop on his left shoulder, where metal and chair were joined by angry red scars. It took Bucky all of his willpower not to roll his eyes and close the door in her face. He snapped his fingers in front of her eyes.

“A delivery for?” he asked, letting some of his impatience seep into his tone.

“Oh, right, sorry,” she said, turning bright red. She cleared her throat. “It’s for a certain James Buchanan Barnes?”

He signed the receipt and was left with a huge bouquet of red and pink camellia, and what looked like magenta zinnias. As he headed to the kitchen to fetch a vase, he noticed a plain white card among the flowers. He fished it out of the floral arrangement to read it, hoping to find a name on it, to know who would send him _flowers_.  
Not that he didn’t like the attention, but it was unusual. He was disappointed to see that the card only had some bar’s address and a time on it. He figured it was probably Nat trying to lure him out of the house. She always communicated cryptically, giving him rendezvous locations and times with flowers or by attaching a note to Talia’s collar. Steve even once found a note for him in their cereal box. How she managed to repeatedly break into their house unnoticed was a mystery.

As he filled the vase with water and took the flowers out of their carefully crafted wrapping to put them in it, he couldn’t help but wonder who could have send those to him, and why they apparently wanted to meet him in this bar. Part of him wished it was Steve’s doing, but he _knew_ him, and that wasn’t how he did things. Steve was all about straight-forwardness, and every time they had a fight he would come to clear things face to face at some point, no matter how hard and unpleasant it might be.

He put the vase on the coffee table, trying not to feel the way his heart was aching, and how his belly was in knots since the fight. It was becoming harder by the minute, so he decided to deal with it the only way he knew: he went upstairs to put on his running gear and left for the longest, most exhausting run he could endure.

 

***

 

Bucky hated running. He took no pleasure in it, finding it dull and repetitive. But since he broke out of Hydra’s brainwashing, he’d found out that running helped clear his mind when he wasn’t sure of who he was and had a hard time distinguishing reality from what he’d been programmed to feel and think.

  
It was on Natasha’s advice that he’d started running. She knew better than anyone how it was to have your brain meddled with, and to be unsure of your own perceptions.  
She’d taken him for a jog after he came to her in the middle of the night, scared and disoriented. He’d woken up and seen Steve sleeping peacefully next to him, and had panicked, thinking that it was Hydra messing with his brain all over again. He knew how the hallucinations they used to put him through went: he’d first be in a state of bliss, before feeling the darkness in him take over and watch, disconnected from his own body, as his hands would start choking Steve. Or punch him. Or stab him. He’d seen himself hurt Steve so many times in so many different ways that he didn’t even think before leaving through the window. He couldn’t remember how he’d ended up on Natasha’s doorstep. He could however still see her opening her front door, her hair pulled up in a messy bun, dressed in an oversized Stark Industries T-shirt and what looked like a pair of Clint’s shorts. She hadn’t said anything, had just came back a mere minute later in a tight black tank top and leggings and bright pink runners on her feet. She’d found runners and clothes for him to put on, that probably belonged to one of the Avengers, and they wordlessly ran for what had felt like hours until he hadn’t been able to think about anything else but the burn in his lungs and legs, not hearing anything but the deafening beating of his heart. It had been the start of a thing then, something that was entirely theirs. And whenever one of them needed a getaway from their own mind, they’d just show up on each other’s doorstep and go for a run.

Bucky ran for an hour and a half before the churning feeling in his stomach was replaced by the raw but now familiar burn in his thighs and chest. He focused on the pain, and everything else went out of his mind. The only thing that mattered was his breathing, putting a foot in front of the other until he got home.

 

***

 

A half hour before the time written on the card that came with the flowers, someone knocked on the door. Talia, asleep on Bucky’s lap, lazily stirred and cracked one eye open to see if her living couch would get up and thus dislodge her. That earned her an amused huff from Bucky, who gently picked her up, a hand under her belly while the other scratched her between the ears before putting her back down on the couch and getting up.

After making sure that he was fully dressed, he went to the door, only to find Natasha already in, taking off her shoes in the entry hall.

“Hum, hi?” He said, not sure about why she was currently here. She was dressed as if she was about to go out, in a skinny dark blue jean and a kaki belt jacket with the sleeves rolled up, over a black lace T-shirt. The stilettos she’d just taken off had heels so high and thin Bucky had no doubt they’d already been used as a weapon.

She didn’t answer but instead eyed him up, one of her eyebrows slowly rising as she took in his loose sweatpants and paint stained Abercrombie T-shirt.

“You,” she said, putting her hand on his shoulders and turning him towards the stairs leading to the bedroom, “are going to get dressed, we’re going out.” She shoved him, forcing him to take a step to avoid face-planting on the wooden floor.

“Tasha I’m not really in the mood tonight.” He groaned, turning around to face her again. Whatever complaint he was about to vocalize died in his throat at the look she gave him. That was the ‘if-you-don’t-want-your-balls-cut-off-and-fed-to-yourself-you-will-do-as-I-told’ stare and he’d learnt –painfully – to swallow his pride and obey whenever she put on that look.

He surrendered, hands up in the air, and slowly retreated to the bedroom, walking backwards and not taking his eyes off of Natasha.

“I hate you.” He told her when he saw her smug smirk, the words denied by the smile on his face. It was his first smile since Steve had left he thought, and was overwhelmed by a wave of affection for this tiny but deadly Russian spy.

“Yeah, yeah.” She said dismissively, crouching to greet Talia who’d come rubbing her head on Natasha’s calves. She picked the cat up, and shooed him out of the room. “Go now, we’re gonna be late. And you don’t want to make me late, I assure you Barnes.” She threatened. Jokingly or not, Bucky was not sure.

He left the hallway to a cooing Natasha and a purring Talia, wondering how in Hell those two lethal redheads got such an important place in his heart so easily.

  
***

 

The bar was an unassuming place in a side alley, called the ‘Café Panache’. It was quite small, but the place was well lit and clean, and the patrons were all well-dressed.  
It was karaoke night, if the sign outside was anything to go by, and so the place was fairly crowded for a week night.

“Karaoke night?” Bucky asked. “Seriously Nat? What the Hell?” He frowned, looking at Natasha in hope of some explanation.

She didn’t bother to explain, answering him with a simple “Yup.” Before going into the bar. There were times when Bucky was grateful for Natasha’s terseness, but tonight wasn’t one.  
Had he not been this afraid of Natasha’s high heels and the strong probability that she could probably perforate one of his lungs if she decided to throw one of them at him, he would have left right this moment. But as it was, he just sighed and followed her inside.

Natasha led them to a booth at the back of the main room, and ordered two beers. They’d be sitting here for fifteen minutes, basking in the relaxed atmosphere of the place and sipping their beer in silence, Bucky somewhat puzzled that Natasha wasn’t pushing him to talk about Steve, when someone finally got on stage to sing. Bucky could not see him or her from where he was, but heard the crowd cheer for the brave lad, who tapped on the mike to test it.

“Hum, hi, good evening everyone.” The man greeted, and Bucky froze at his voice. “My name is Steve Rogers, and I’d like to sing [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWl6Smmh-2c) for one of the most important person in my life, James.” Steve cleared his throat and the music started.

So, it was Steve who’d sent the flowers. Bucky felt his heart thump in his chest, and was glad he was sitting down because his knees went weak and his stomach dropped. He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed this voice. He closed his eyes and let out a shaky laugh.

“I guess this is not some crazy coincidence, uh?” He said to Natasha, who was still drinking from her pint, not in the least phased. She put her pint down, and started casually picking at her nails.

“Nope. I mean, I thought about trying to talk him out of this, but then I realized that if I didn’t let him take his head out of his ass, you’d never do it.” She said, almost sounding bored. But Bucky knew her well enough to notice the faint signs of apprehension in her posture, as if she was ready to react to whatever way Bucky would respond to this.

He didn’t have the time to form a coherent answer before two hands landed on his shoulders, and Sam fucking Wilson hauled him out of his chair. He was too surprised to fight him, and found himself seated right in front of the scene right as Steve intoned the second verse of the song.

 

_I'm two left feet when_   
_I'm home, we tap-danced on broken glass_   
_Somehow you managed_   
_To keep your sense of humor intact_

“Now you stop being a dumbass, and you stay here okay?” Sam whispered in his ear. “Or else you’re gonna have some very pissed falcon and spider on your ass.” He finished, clapping Bucky’s shoulder before retreating to where Natasha was still seated.

He was left with no other choice than to look at the stage. To look at Steve. He felt his throat tighten at the sight. Steve was wearing the same clothes he’d worn when he asked Bucky to move in with him, grey slacks and a lavender shirt. His face was unshaven, and his hair combed to the side, the way Bucky best liked it. Their eyes met when Steve got to the chorus, and Bucky was unable to tear his gaze away.

 

 _Let's skip the charades_  
_You're seeing right through me anyway_  
 _Can we just speak plain?_  
 _We're playing for the same team_

Steve smiled tentatively at him, so shy and yet so full of love that it was impossible for him not to smile back. He knew how much Steve hated being in the spotlight, especially if it involved talking about his personal feelings, and he knew how hard singing in front of all these people was for him. They’d often joked about such grand acts of love whenever they watched a movie or were forced by Clint to watch yet another musical proposal gone viral. Bucky was actually a sucker for these things, and Steve liked to tease him about it, telling him that he’d have to settle for less grand gestures because he was _so not_ cut out to publicly proclaim his undying love for Bucky.

 

 _But I'm the one that's acting like, acting like, acting like_  
_I'm so strong_  
 _You're the one that's acting like, acting like, acting like_  
 _Nothing's wrong_

 

And yet here he was, looking into Bucky’s eyes as if he were staring at his soul and could not handle how much love it inspired him. He sang the words as if he wanted to engrave them on Bucky’s mind and make him understand that he meant every one of them.

 

 _You dodged the bullet_  
_You do your best when you're busiest_  
 _But you're disconnected_  
 _You can't find your name in the script_

 _It was you who were wildest_  
_It was you who floated above us all_  
 _I held on with wires_  
 _Will you come back down if I let you go?_

 _Let's skip the charades_  
_I'm seeing right through you anyway_  
 _Can we just speak plain?_  
 _We're playing for the same team_

 

He did not realize he was crying until he lifted his hand to wipe at his cheeks. There were so many emotions bubbling inside of him he felt dizzy from them. He felt guilty, for not noticing how harsh his behavior had been on Steve and hated himself for hurting him. But he also felt loved, and hopeful for the first time in a long time that maybe there was a way out and that he didn’t have to do this alone.

He quickly turned his head towards Sam and Natasha and mouthed “Thank you”. They just smiled at him, Sam mouthing “No big deal” back.

Steve finished his song, and got off the stage under the applause. Many people in the room were crying, couples holding hands a bit tighter than usual, watching Steve as he headed directly for Bucky, who stood up to meet him halfway.

They stood there, awkward for all of ten seconds before Steve caught him in a fierce hug, holding him so tight it hurt, but Bucky didn’t care. He hugged him back, head falling on Steve’s shoulder.  
Bucky took a step back, loosening their embrace, and cupped Steve’s face with his right hand.

“I love you.” He whispered before leaning in to put a chaste kiss on Steve’s lips, shy and tentative.

“I love you too.” Came the answering whisper, before Steve tangled his fingers in Bucky’s hair and kissed him again, deeper this time, devoid of all uncertainty, under the amused whistles of the patrons, and what suspiciously sounded like some crude shout-out in Russian.

Bucky bit and pulled on Steve’s lower lip before bursting out in laughter, breaking the kiss.

“Oh god,” he said, putting his forehead against Steve’s. “I think Natasha just yelled at us to get the fuck out of here and ‘put each other’s dicks in each other’s mouths’ so she can go get drunk with Clint to forget ‘the bad porno intro’ she just witnessed.” He said once his laughter died down.

Steve blushed, but kept a somewhat composed expression. He cocked an eyebrow, and looked at Bucky.

“Great idea.” He simply said, catching Bucky’s hand and all but dragging him out of the café.

 

**Author's Note:**

> If some of you are interested, here are the meanings of the flowers:
> 
> Camellia (general): Admiration, Perfection, Good Luck, Gift to a Man  
> Pink Camellia: Longing for you  
> Red Camellia: You're a flame in my heart
> 
> Zinnia: Lasting affection
> 
> I hope you enjoyed it!  
> Thank you so much for reading. ♥
> 
> You can find me on tumblr if you want, at spencersbitch :3


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